Fine
Gael and Labour are committed to an austerity strategy which is pushing up
unemployment and driving down the quality of life of families.

The
Government have slavishly followed the programme of austerity and cuts which
was set out by Fianna Fáil in their Four Year Plan in November 2010.

Domestic
Demand is on the floor as a result of the introduction of a succession of
punitive measures that have reduced wages, child benefit payments, disability
payments and social welfare; and attacked social provisions for carers, older
citizens, and the blind.

In
addition a range of stealth taxes, including the Household charge; the
universal social charge; VAT increases; septic tank charges and more have eaten
dramatically into the incomes of families.

There
are dreadful social consequences as well as economic consequences to the
Government’s austerity programme.

The
elderly have been hard hit by this Government through the closure of public
nursing homes and the slashing of Home Help Hours.

There
is an 80 year old partially sighted woman living just outside Drogheda who
recently had a hip replacement operation.

Consequently
she has limited mobility.

The
Health Service Executive allocated her a home help package of 30 minutes a
week!

Last
Thursday I met with older citizens outside the Dáil who were there with the
group ‘Older & Bolder’, which is an NGO committed to defending the rights
of the elderly.

They
were lobbying for the immediate reversal of government cuts to Home Help and
Home Care Packages.

Many
of those participating were older citizens dependent on their home help service
and worried and angry and distressed at the government’s plans.

Austerity
is not working. Even
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have realised this.

When
will the Government?

Sinn
Fein has consistently said that you cannot cut your way out of recession.

Next
month we will bring forward our own fully costed alternative Budget setting out
our view of how the deficit should be closed as we have done in each year since
this crisis began.

Sinn
Fein has also produced an alternative jobs creation strategy which I have sent
to the Taoiseach.

This
detailed plan will provide a socially responsible way to reduce the budget
deficit while creating and retaining jobs.

It
calls for an investment of €13 billion into job creation and retention, which
will create an average of 156,000 short and long term jobs.

The
money is there; in the National Pension Reserve Fund, the European Pension Bank
and in the private pension sector.

This
is not rocket science.

Our
stimulus plan contains:

-Plans to build an
additional 100 schools and refurbish 75 more over the next three years (€350
million);

-establish 50 new
Primary Health Care Centres (€250 million);

-and develop an
€1billion investment in sustainable wind power and wave energy.

We
have a plan to Invest in the rollout of next generation broadband across the 26
counties. (€2.5 billion)

This
is vital to attract business into our communities.

In
my own constituency of Louth there are rural parts of the constituency where
there is no access to broadband.

This
state ranks 17 out of 27 on the European league table of broad band access so
we have some ground to make up in this regard.

These
and other projects are set out in detail in the document and I invite the
Government to take on board out ideas.

Politics
is about choices.

Rather
than invest money in jobs stimulus the Government have instead frittered away
the money that was in the National Pension Reserve into Bank Bailouts and
payments to unguaranteed bondholders.

Fine
Gael and Labour have shown no strategic vision of how to invest the money in
the NPRF in a way that can help the economy in the long term.

The
Government record on Jobs, like that of Fianna Fáil before them is appalling.

Fine
Gael’s manifesto promised that their NewERA plan would invest an extra €7
billion in energy, communications and water to give Ireland the world class
infrastructure

There
was to be a Jobs Budget within 100 days of the Government being established but
this was watered down to a Jobs initiative in May 2011.

In
February of 2012, after a year in office the Government unveiled an Action Plan
for Jobs.

At
its launch the Taoiseach said it would create an additional 100,000 jobs.

There
has been a loss of 33,000 in the last year.

The
Labour Party promised before the election that it would put in place a €500
million jobs fund to support new ideas and create employment in strategic
sectors of the economy.

They
promised to establish a strategic investment bank, with a lending capacity of
€2 billion, from the National Pension Reserve Fund.

None
of this happened. And then there was the Strategic Investment Fund unveiled in
September 2011.

It
was to provide funds from the National Pension Reserve Fund for investment in
the economy, provide capital for small and medium enterprises and the creation
of jobs.

The
legislation required for the Fund hasn’t been published and the Government
haven’t been able to give any indication as to when this would be brought
forward.

The
Government have failed to deliver the promised 60,000 additional places for
Education and Training.

The
Government is on the wrong track, its continuing the failed policies of Fianna
Fáil.

I
encourage the Government to look at seriously at the alternatives that Sinn
Fein have set out in our Jobs Proposals and which we will set out in our
alternative budget.

1 comment:

Hello Gerry, The debt is suffocating the country, Ireland needs to prepare fit tools for the designs of ambition. New ideas are studied and analyzed until they are asphyxiated by the bailout poster boys. The Government says their heading in the right direction, if that direction is down-hill, on a mountain of banking debt. It is most impossible to extract that much money every year from the Irish economy. Ireland will only be able to give weight to smoke or Wool from an ass, for You cannot extract what isn't there to begin with. Bullied by Europe, to attempt what is impossible, for ordinary Irish taxpayers to protect the European banking system, ECB.